1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle running with power such as elastic force stocked in an elastic member, and a vehicle system containing the vehicle and a station at which the vehicle is stopped.
2. Description of Related Art
An unmanned automated guided vehicle (AGV: Automated Guided Vehicle) which runs with power from a battery mounted therein has been used as a vehicle for conveying a part (work) such as an engine, a gear box or the like to each working station in a production field such an automobile factory or the like. Specifically, in the unmanned automated guide vehicle as described above, a motor for running is rotationally driven with the power from the battery to drive driving wheels of the vehicle, whereby the vehicle runs. With respect to this type of conveying vehicle, sufficient output power is required to the running motor because it conveys a heavy object such as an engine part or the like. Accordingly, there has been concern that the equipment cost and the power consumption would increase due to increase in size of motors and thus increase in size of vehicles.
For example, JP-A-2004-331052 discloses a conveying vehicle for conveying a part (work) such an automatic transmission or the like which is provided with neither electrically-operated driving system nor hydraulically operated driving system. In this conveying vehicle, a rack-and-pinion mechanism is driven due to the empty weight of a work being conveyed to make forward driving force of the vehicle, and also the empty weight of the work is stocked in a coil spring (elastic member) provided to a seat. When the work is taken out from the seat, the rack-and-pinion is reversely driven by repulsive force of the coil spring, thereby making backward driving force of the vehicle.
In this case, the conveying vehicle disclosed in JP-A-2004-331052 can merely reciprocate on a predetermined linear passage, and thus it is difficult to apply this conveying vehicle to a production line along which plural kinds of parts are conveyed, assembled with one another, etc. Furthermore, it is not easy to change the conveying passage. In addition, the starting operation of the conveying vehicle is dependent on a work of mounting a work onto the seat of the vehicle or removing the work from the seat, and thus the control of the starting operation is cumbersome.